Financial News

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Talks aimed at halting the wildcat walkouts that have hit several oil and energy plants are to begin later.

Oil giant Total had refused to hold negotiations with union bosses about the jobs dispute at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire.

But Les Bayliss, assistant general secretary of Unite, said the talks were going ahead in London after Total changed its position.

The unofficial action began last week after 647 contractors were dismissed by their bosses for going on strike in a row over jobs.

Thousands of workers walked out again on Monday in support of their Lindsey colleagues.

The GMB union is holding a demonstration this morning outside the Lindsey plant.

Staff there yesterday burnt their dismissal letters in a car park opposite the huge plant in protest at being given until 5pm Monday to reapply for their jobs.

Phil Whitehurst, of the GMB union, told the crowd: "Let them show us how many want to go back in there crawling on their bellies for their jobs. We go out together, we go back together."

The workers were involved in a project to build a new desulpherisation plant at Lindsey - it is £100m over budget and late being completed because of productivity problems and the unofficial strikes.

Michel Benezit, President of Refining and Marketing, told the Press Association the dispute was out of Total's hands because it involved sub-contractors.

"The work should have been finished by now and the unit should be in operation," he said.

"Because of poor productivity and disputes, we still have a long way to go.

"I want to make it clear that we have not fired anyone because we have no employees involved in this work.

"There is not much we can do. My only goal is to see an end to the strike as soon as possible. We have already suffered huge cost over-runs."

Sources estimated up to 4,000 contract workers at power stations and oil and gas terminals across the UK took part in Monday's unofficial action.

The biggest action was at the Sellafield nuclear site in Cumbria where 900 contract staff walked out.

Around 400 workers at two gas plants in west Wales joined the strike, as did 200 contractors at Drax and Eggborough power stations near Selby, North Yorkshire.

Workers at Fiddlers Ferry power station in Widnes, Cheshire, Shell's Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, and Didcot power station in Oxfordshire also took unofficial strike action.